Conflict of the Numbers
The Conflict of the Numbers began upon the discovery of the Third Order and Vato's army, and the possible return of the Sith Order, leading to full scale open galaxy-wide warfare between the three factions, the Jedi Order, and the Galactic Republic, for control over the galaxy. While the Third Order and Vato's army sought to conquer the galaxy and outlying space, the Jedi and the Republic sought to preserve democracy. Open warfare officially began after a brief but fateful skirmish on Der Erebolten. With the Third Order's existence struggling and failing to be a secret, there were numerous open casualties and the Order targeted the Jedi. Many of the latter's forces were decimated during the Battle of Coruscant and the symbol of the war, Kristen, was listed as missing in action. The devastation of the Jedi allowed the Third Order to turn their attention towards the Galactic Republic, spending the next year subtly weakening it so a coup could be staged, whilst slowly but surely snuffing out any resistance, with B'en'jamin Thorrn now a prominent member of the Order. However, when Kristen escaped, she kickstarted a chain of events that drew out the Supreme Leader Xerin Hedashield and inspired the entire galaxy to riot against the enemy. During the Battle of Mustafar, the Jedi won when Darth Mutialatus fled and Hedashield was destroyed with the help of a repentant Thorrn, leading to a new era of peace that lasted until the Clone Wars. Prelude The rise of Xerin Hedashield The seeds of the conflict were sowed in the world of Vrean. More than five centuries before the Battle of Yavin, the world was threatened by a plague. Desperate to save her world from extinction, a young girl named Xerin Hedashield followed Senator Chalatos when he tried and failed to appeal to the Galactic Republic, which had long been hurting and manipulating the peoples of the galaxy to maintain their power, for the well-being of the Vreanian race. The Senate was focused on their own needs and callously dismissed Hedashield and Chalatos. Not long after, the world fell and Hedashield became part of the surviving quarter, while her mother and father did not. Deeply impacted by this event, Hedashield came to believe that the government's selfishness caused them to overlook the bigger problems for everyone, and their cruelty was rapidly threatening the very existence of a galaxy far, far away. If nothing was done, then the galaxy would be destroyed from within. Hedashield concluded that the galactic authority needed correction and wishing to spare other planets from suffering Vrean's fate, resolved to conquer the Republic and replace it with her dictatorship, the Third Order. Conflict of the Pearian Using her vast intellect, rapidly strengthening Force powers, and exceptional ability to obtain followers, Xerin Hedashield spent the next ten years building her army and set out on her quest to save the galaxy from itself. It was around this time that she came into regular contact with Darth Mutialatus and successfully merged the Third Order with the Sith. Hedashield became the Supreme Leader of her organization even ruling from the stronghold of the Dark Tower on Der Erebolten. In the mix, she had her droids build a consumption speeder. Hedashield drove it to the store, where it sucked out all the candy and soda and they stacked themselves on the shelves inside the speeder's giant box. She drove home, undetected, as everyone in the store ran amok, having no idea what had happened. On Del Erebolten, the box implanted itself into the wall, effectively becoming her food shelf. Eventually, she learned from Saint Pyro that a Pearian may appear in the galaxy at some point in the near future. Believing a Pearian would be very useful in her plans of galactic domination, Hedashield ordered Pyro's slaughter, as she hoped to destabilize St. Pyro's Center for Militarized Sciences. While Pyro's assassination was successful, she failed to end the science program, as Pyro, in his dying breaths, placed a scientist named R'ockienc in charge. In the mix, Hedashield began seeking out an apprentice for Darth Mutialatus on the Holonet, being drawn by a small Twi'lek boy named Thomas Slovak, though she accepted the fact that the choice was entirely up to Mutialatus. She chose not to reveal this to him until the time was right. She also recruited Captain Cole. Kristen's adventure In 240 BBY, Xerin Hedashield learned that a Pearian named Kristen had appeared on Coruscant and that she was being accompanied by a Jedi Padawan named B'en'jamin Thorrn, and she sent Grabbers Yaxa and Marion to capture the children and bring them unharmed to the science tower to be questioned by Darth Mutialatus. Upon learning of their failure from Mutialatus, Hedashield ruthlessly arranged for their private execution by General Gore. Somehow, she acquired an exotic marble owned by Jedi Master Yoda and entrusted to a Jedi Knight. Owning the marble confirmed that Kristen and Thorrn were to follow the individual. Immediately after the Grabbers' deaths, Xerin Hedashield took off in her personal speeder to seek out Kristen and B'en'jamin Thorrn herself, believing that disclosing information whilst leaving out the essentials would earn their trust. She tracked them to an isolated field where they were hiding from the Third Order (albeit ignorant to what the Order was). Thorrn immediately showed her a vintage necklace made of Phrik, which she was glad to hear more about, but Kristen told her about the marble entrusted to them by Yoda. Thorrn developed an instant crush, while Kristen was wary of Hedashield (though she was currently suspicious of everyone). They arrived at Xerin's apartment, where Hedashield brought Thorrn upstairs with her, wishing to speak with them separately in order to give them information they would find incredibly useful whilst cleverly withholding the essentials. When they entered her bedroom, Hedashield changed into her bedclothes and offered Thorrn a snack, before questioning his knowledge of the prophecy of the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Hedashield also revealed that she knew how Kristen appeared in the Star Wars galaxy, something she claimed he did not yet need to know. Xerin then interrogated B'en, wanting to know about the Chosen One who was allegedly destined to bring balance to the Force. B'en, however, did not find this likely, though Xerin thought otherwise, she could find no backup to this claim, so she dropped the subject and they prepared to leave. B'en told her a joke about space slugs and in turn, she told him a joke about neebrays. They returned to the playplace and Xerin picked up Kristen, dropping B'en off. In her room, she realized that Kristen was incredibly curious, so Hedashield spoke to her fluently to explain everything she wanted to know in a levelheaded way. Kristen learned that a failed experiment of St. Pyro's Center for Militarized Sciences intending to learn how to travel outside the galaxy has resulted in her abduction. Hedashield pointed out that the leader of the laboratory beckoned her several times. She chided Kristen for not answering, who shrugged her off by asking what Pearians were. When Xerin claimed it was a great mystery, Kristen asked how to return to Earth. Xerin told her to seek out the mysterious and all-powerful Omnipotent One. Intrigued by both of the children, Hedashield followed them downstairs and offered them the opportunity to spend the night with her. Both of them obliged. Thorrn seemed to bond with Hedashield during this time, and when daylight came, Hedashield allowed the children to borrow a speeder and gave them advice on how best to get offworld again. Later, she told Captain Cole that she intended to use Darth Mutialatus to lure them back to Der Erobelten. Following this event, the Third Order ambushed the children on several fronts, but they proved nearly impossible to capture, even by Darth Mutialatus himself. They also acquired the services of the Terrifying Triplets. The conflict Skirmish on Der Erebolten A couple days later, Darth Mutialatus spoke with Hedashield, and they agreed that two Grabbers would not be enough to try again. Concurrently, Mutialatus dispatched ten Grabbers to capture the children on Geonosis. Their mission was a success, but the children fought their way out of their bonds and through the fortress, impressing Hedashield, who was watching them via security camera, with their fighting prowess. Shortly afterwards, she was approached by Captain Cole, who had brought the two children to mask his disenchantment and plan to betray and murder her. Hedashield responded by projecting a shield between herself and her enemies. As if out of nowhere, Darth Mutialatus appeared and killed Captain Cole. Shocked and overcome by agonizing pain, Cole falls to the ground in front of Hedashield. Infuriated that Hedashield was not any less indifferent regarding Cole's unexpected demise, Thorrn challenged her to a duel. In response, Xerin reached under her pillow and grabbed a blaster concealed under it. Standing up, she prepared to incapacitate Thorrn, as the last thing she wanted was to kill him. Suddenly, Cole used his powers to teleport the children away from the apartment and to safety, Hedashield could only watch as they twisted out the window. As Cole's life ebbed away, Hedashield seethed with fury at the loss of two valuable assets to her plans as well as her Captain. Just then, General Gore arrived in the room. Hedashield quietly expressed her doubt that B'en'jamin Thorrn is the Chosen One. Hedashield decided that soon, she would risk coming out of the shadows to lead the Third Order, which was now public knowledge, to victory. However, the knowledge that this meant she could hire more able soldiers without fear of exposure or disloyalty comforted her. She took this chance to tell the Dark Lord of her Holonet campaign to find him an apprentice. She arranged to work alongside Mutialatus, an extension of her plan to expose herself before the Dark forces. However, they were not ready to expose the perpetrators of the conquest to the Jedi Order. The start of open war With the Third Order struggling to keep their actions silent from the peering eyes of the Jedi Order, Xerin Hedashield ordered the initiation of several casualties. Many innocent lives were claimed and two planets were completely obliterated. The Conflict of the Numbers had officially begun. Fed up with the failures of her followers, Hedashield had finally grown tired of the lack of progress in her crusade and decided to take matters into her own hands. Hedashield also put her life on the line for a creature known only as "the Captain", unintentionally procuring his loyalty. The Captain ultimately replaced Captain Cole in the ranks of the Third Order. Eventually, a few people were reported to have disappeared in the aftermath of a huge party attended by thousands of people from all around the galaxy. The reason for it was unknown to the public, but it was in fact because Xerin Hedashield had gone to confirm what few individuals of significant importance were a threat. Massacre on Alderaan Before she tortured Mutialatus for failing her, she decided to preserve his trust and energy long enough to send him to Alderaan to force its inhabitants to forge several powerful war machines before massacring a major portion of the planet. Mutialatus' crusade lasted for five months. Upon learning of his return, Xerin Hedashield demanded Darth Mutialatus' presence by contacting him by using the Force to animate a rock, furiously telling him to come see her in person. When he arrived, Hedashield expressed her confidence in Mutialatus. But in light of her apprentice's failure at the hands of two children, coupled with the murder of Captain Cole, Hedashield's faith in Mutialatus' power began to waver. She proceeded to chastise him, calling him "weak and shallow of mind". Enraged, Mutialatus threatened to kill Hedashield, but she quickly knocked him unconscious with a blast of Force lightning that caused him to roll around on the floor in agony. He was carted out by Lieutenant Juliah. Attack on Tatooine B'en'jamin Thorrn's mission Knowing that Kristen would return to the Jedi Temple in an effort to save the Jedi Order, Hedashield ordered Darth Mutialatus to send their forces to the planet where they would end the war and Yoda's ancient religion for good. Determined to fulfill her oath in the upcoming battle for the galaxy. Eventually, B'en'jamin Thorrn decided to ask Hedashield for a rank in the Third Order, as he intended to glean useful information from her. When Hedashield encountered Thorrn in a chamber (after being discovered by Hedashield's men as an eavesdropper and forced into their electrochair for interrogation), he pretended to swear allegiance to the Third Order, saying he had come to request a chance to move against the Jedi. Hedashield doubted he was being sincere, and while she could tell he was conflicted about his feelings for her, she thought she could gleam useful information about the Jedi Order from him and effectively became the interrogator herself, not the interrogated. The two had a civil conversation where Thorrn told her the Jedi were finally ready to counter against a full-on siege. Knowing that Kristen would return to the Jedi Temple in an effort to save the Jedi Order, Hedashield ordered Darth Mutialatus to send their forces to the planet where they would end the war and Yoda's ancient religion for good. Determined to fulfill her oath in the upcoming battle for the galaxy, Hedashield told Thorrn to accompany her in her private speeder. Battle of Coruscant Along with B'en, Xerin rode with her army to Coruscant, where she asked Myddd if he had succeeded in killing Kristen. He said no, much to Hedashield's disappointment. During the battle, Hedashield commanded her army by using signal flags which tell a legion when to attack, while allowing Thorrn to caress her. On her orders, Mutialatus began by using mutated sando aqua monsters to dig a path through the towers. Yoda commanded the troops to rain lasers upon the Merciless while Kreddus stayed behind with his forces until needed. Hedashield noticed this, and when Thorrn pointed out that they could not fight on two fields at once, she sent the other half of her army, consisting mainly of spear men, to attack the city. Kreddus and his forces retreated to Galactic City. Hedashield ordered that the troopers continue pushing forward while she sent General Gore to personally kill Kristen as she believed their only focus should be to reach the Jedi Temple so she could destroy it. The Captain reported that Kristen was barricading herself and they were exhausting their resources, but the Supreme Leader insisted that none of this would matter. He reminded her of his debt to her, surprising her, as she did not believe there was a debt to be paid. Hedashield's now immense army nearly took Galactic City and cornered the Jedi, but Hedashield commanded her force to halt so that her droids could come forward. Then she commanded her army to annihilate the Men of Thorrn. Suddenly, Kristen and Company burst out of the Temple and charged the troops. Phoenix and Victoria went after Hedashield but, when they reached there, Mutialatus snatched Victoria and impaled the adolescent through the torso with his lightsaber. An enraged Thorrn broke off to pursue the Dark Lord, but Hedashield turned and shouted at him, infuriated by his betrayal. He told her he had been playing her, but she coldly stated that she already figured that out for herself. To B'en'jamin Thorrn, Hedashield appeared an amorphous entity of shadowy mist floating around before she revealed herself. Barely needing any physical exertion for this, she captured the weakened Padawan. However, she showed him mercy and gave him a second chance, offering him a rank in the Third Order, which he ultimately accepted, promising to submit to her training and do anything in his power to prove himself to the Supreme Leader. In response, Hedashield told Thorrn that she would give him one final chance on the condition that he captured Kristen. He did as she asked, imprisoning her aboard the Vindicator. Having devastated the Jedi, Hedashield gazed out the window and smiled satisfactorily, content at her victory but still regretting the fact that the Third Order may never have Kristen. Rise of the Third Order The Battle of Coruscant saw the devastation of the Jedi Order. In the months that followed, Hedashield decided that she was no longer willing to tolerate the existence of Malastare, a planet independent of both the Galactic Republic and the Third Order, which had long supported her enemies. She began training Thorrn, teaching him secrets of the Dark Side of the Force. The two of them realized that the droids would only listen to them, so in return for Hedashield's training, Thorrn instructed the robots in their daily routines. The two of them genuinely grew to love and desire each other. [[Escape from the Vindicator|Escape from the Vindicator]] Kristen was to be brought before Xerin Hedashield in order for her to reckon. The prisoner thought to be Kristen, being sent to Der Erebolten aboard the ship for which she was imprisoned, was discovered as being Third Order holodroid HAMEN using his advanced hologram technology and the flagship was attacked by the real Kristen. Swiftly, Kristen incapacitated all of the troopers guarding it and cast General Gore out from the Vindicator. She then found a ship to escape in. Liberation of Vato Later, the Captain reported that Kristen and her new company had escaped. Gasping, Hedashield told the Captain to approach her, causing him to look at her with dread, until Thorrn told him to leave. Hedashield told the Captain to seek out reinforcements. Tired of isolating herself from galactic affairs, and with victory all but assured for the Third Order, she decided to personally hunt down Kristen herself. Consequentially, she went with Thorrn and Darth Mutialatus and together they liberated Vato. Shortly afterwards, Mutialatus went to a flashback where he was speaking to Hedashield. There, Hedashield told Mutialatus her forces were growing impatient, something he dismissed, though he questioned Vato's formidability. Ritual of the Dark Tower Skirmish on Umbara Nodding wistfully in affirmation to Victoria, Hedashield stopped and began to reminisce. Using the Power of Vato to craft an illusion of her memories, she explained Vrean's fall from grace: A plague threatened to consume the planet and wipe out its entire civilization. Realizing that her people were faced with extinction, Hedashield ensured word got out to the Galactic Republic, only for them to callously dismiss the crisis. Nonetheless, Hedashield's predictions came to pass, and Vrean was devastated. Battle of Mustafar Xerin Hedashield exited the ship, being flanked by Darth Mutialatus, the Captain, Velocity Tox, Lieutenant Juliah, and B'en'jamin Thorrn. During the battle, Darth Vadermort summoned spirits that he did not have enough experience to control, and consequently became possessed by them. Darth Mutialatus was desperate to win the battle, thus he did not care whether equal casualties were sustained on both sides. Though temporarily stronger than his master, he was ultimately banished by Kristen. As the Battle of Mustafar ensued, the Captain remained behind to protect Hedashield. Yoda then personally confronted him, knocking him off the ledge. The Captain retaliated and overpowered Yoda, but before he could kill the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order, Shae Bibble and an unidentified member of the People of Orenbach came to Yoda's aid, telling the Captain he was wrong and Yoda would never fight alone. The Captain then ferociously fought Bibble and the other fighter as Hedashield watched. Bibble threw the Captain backward, but he changed his momentum and lunged at Yoda again, exploding upon contact with him and tearing the platform in half. Startled, Kristen leaped off the platform, while an outraged Hedashield turned and blasted the Captain's killers away. Slowly getting to her feet, Kristen stepped forward and, zapping a stormtrooper, came face-to-face with Darth Mutialatus. The Pearian and the Dark Lord engaged in a brutal duel, but Mutialatus ultimately overwhelmed Kristen and pinned her down, only for them to both realize that Thorrn had finally turned against Hedashield and was helping the Jedi. Mutialatus taunted Kristen with the idea of murdering Thorrn slowly for switching sides, but Kristen deliberately slid off the platform and allowed herself to fall out of the sky. She was rescued by Thorrn, and after the two awkwardly reconciled, Kristen hurled Darth Mutialatus out of the sky and left him dangling on the roof of a tower. Darth Mutialatus refused to help stop the Third Order and instead leaped directly onto a Delta-7 ship, flying it to safety. With Darth Mutialatus having been defeated, Kristen then summoned a rope to her and, swinging across its length, rushed to rejoin her friends, only to encounter Xerin Hedashield. Kristen was quickly overcome by Xerin Hedashield's violent barrage of energy attacks, but she retaliated and kicked Hedashield, making her lose her balance and fall off a ledge to her assumed death. Kristen ran over to find the currently assembled Men of Thorrn and report the best, but before she could awkwardly relay the news, Hedashield emerged and furiously attacked the Jedi forces. In tandem with her friends, Kristen telekinetically penetrated the missile straight through Hedashield and embedded it in the molten lava, at the cost of blowing up an entire quarter of the planet. Aftermath Appearances *''Across the Portal: Interference'' *''Across the Portal: Insurgence'' *''Across the Portal: Intuition'' Category:Across the Portal events Category:Wars